Freedom
by Beboots
Summary: A few short (emphasis of the short) stories revolving around the same theme; freedom. Mostly AU Kurts (because I love him so ) In no way related to RL events.


~Just so you guys know, this is a few short (emphasis of the short) stories revolving around the same theme. The first one is obviously evo-verse, and the others are completely A/U. I actually wrote this a few months ago, but (stupid me) forgot to post it on ff.net. O_o; ~  
  
Kurt Wagner stared at his reflection in the mirror, in his room at the Institute.  
  
Pink flesh. Brown eyes. Five fingers.  
  
A lie.  
  
He turned off his image inducer and saw, again, how he really was. Was he, truthfully, all that scary?  
  
Sure, he had two few fingers... that didn't make him a bad guy, right?  
  
His fur was soft, and a rich royal blue. A beautiful colour, yes?  
  
Pale golden eyes. His mama used to say that it was his soul shining through; a warm, friendly glow.  
  
His lower legs were very strange, like a dog or cat's legs...but people weren't afraid of them...  
  
His fangs were a little shocking, but...  
  
Graceful pointed ears...  
  
And a tail... with a spaded tip. A demon's tail.  
  
It wasn't everything individually that scared people... it was everything put together.  
  
With a sigh, he turned on the illusion again. Oh, how he longed for the day where he could have the freedom to walk, as he was, down a crowded city street, or any street, for that matter, without anyone batting an eye.  
  
A freedom that would probably never come in his lifetime.  
  
*** *** ***  
  
Freedom. Yes, he'd heard of that. It was what they where supposed to be fighting for. Mutant freedom... From discrimination, to have human rights...  
  
Private M. Darkholme was on sentry duty in the early hours of a winter night.  
  
The Mutie Wars, as they were called, had been going on since before he was born. The norms said that it was the muties fault; mutants maintained that it was the human's fault.  
  
In any case, it had begun with the building of the Sentinals.  
  
They had been created to 'fix' the 'mutant problem', but had become a much worse one very quickly. Their programs might not have been inputted correctly, or maybe there was an inside mutant in the scientist team. No one living knew; for the Sentinals had first destroyed their creators. The machines had seen every person as a target, be it mutant child or elder norm.  
  
No one was safe. By the time the problem had been discovered, it was too late. Thousands and thousands of various sized Sentinals had been deployed. Hundreds of thousands of people had been massacred, human and mutant.  
  
Even with the threat of the Sentinals, humans still waged war on mutants and mutie-lovers. They killed their own children if they manifested as mutants.  
  
Needless to say, after a few decades, there were many more mutants than norms.  
  
The mutants leader, Magneto, was growing old. There was talk of him being replaced by his second in command, the shapeshifter known as Mystique.  
  
Private Darkholme didn't know if his mother being leader would help the cause. He knew for a fact that Mother wasn't interested in anything but her own hide; she had thrown away her children to the military school as soon as they could walk. She wasn't interested in the needs of her people, the mutants, as Magneto was.  
  
Suddenly, a cry went up from one of the other sentries.  
  
"Sentinals!"  
  
There, on the horizon, bright in the darkness of the night, were the distinct lights of the machines. Darkholme gripped his specially designed rifle in suddenly damp furred palms.  
  
This was the Mutant war. Although they were supposed to be fighting for mutant freedom, those in active combat knew better. They weren't fighting for mutie freedom; they were fighting for mutie-survival.  
  
*** *** ***  
  
Freedom. He remembered that, from long years ago.  
  
Before the Cage. Before the staring eyes and horrified gasps.... Before the freak show.  
  
Kurt remembered flying in the air, swinging from ropes, high above the ground. The stares had been adoring, then; the gasps only urging him on when he completed a particularly hazardous trick.  
  
Here, there were cold iron bars and beds of hay.  
  
At home, his cage had been the sky; his bed anywhere he chose, be it a hammock, a cot, the grass, or even a tree-branch or trailer roof, if it suited him!  
  
He remembered how he used to be... never without a smile on his blue-furred face, always laughing and encouraging his friends and family. Helping his sisters carry water for dinner, or giving his youngest sister, Erika, piggy back rides... Eating his mother's wondrous cooking...  
  
Here, he couldn't even stand up, and was lucky if he was fed two meals a day.  
  
If it was sunny, he was hot. If it rained, he was wet. If it was windy, he grew cold. That was how it was, and what it had been for years. But he still held on to his memories... Hopeful thoughts of freedom...  
  
A freedom that may never come.  
  
*** *** ***  
  
Kurt had heard of this thing called freedom. He'd never experienced it himself, having been chained to his oar for longer than he could remember. His many seat-mates had told him of freedom, whispered tales of life off the ship, before they had been captured, during the few short rest-times.  
  
The wood of his own oar was worn and familiar to him, just as were the black iron bands chained around his wrists, neck, and feet. His arm muscles bulged as he brought the heavy wood down for another stroke in time with the ominous drum beats that always pervaded his dreams; a sound just as familiar and as unwelcome as the chains.  
  
He worked twice as hard as the others, who were two to an oar, as he was alone.  
  
His latest partner had been a darker skinned boy who had been able to make boney shield appear on his skin to guard against the whip strikes... The same whips that never really allowed fur to grow on Kurt's back.  
  
The boy had been new, and rebellious, and horrified at his new station...He hadn't lasted a week, before the slave master, Matthews, had slain him with his long, rusty sword.  
  
A painful death.  
  
Kurt had been here longer than anyone else on the deck, except perhaps Matthews.  
  
Mama had been chained a few oars down, and across, but a few years ago she had collapsed, and had had to be dragged away by Graydon, the drummer, and Matthews.  
  
But as they passed his bench with his mother's limp form, he could have sworn he saw, from the corner of his eye, both tears and a faint smile on her blue face, so like his own.  
  
So he knew that his mother was free; one way or another.  
  
Mama had said that he had been born free, but he never could remember the blue skies and green fields the other oar slaves described in hoarse whispers when their masters had gone above deck to get drunk.  
  
All he knew were the smoke-stained wooden ceilings and the floor that always seemed to be damp with bilge water.  
  
But although he couldn't be free, at least he was alive, unlike many of the other oar slaves that had once been on his deck. He would stay alive, for Mama.  
  
Because one day, one way or another, he'd be free. 


End file.
